KILL ORDER — Millions in federal grants have been cut. Scores of probationary agency employees are being fired, while others are being put on leave. House Democrats are banging on the agency’s doors to get in without an appointment. It’s a familiar slash-and-burn tale as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team sweeps through the Education Department, and there’s still one more shoe to drop: the formal executive order to dismantle the agency. Those inside the department say it’s eerily quiet as staffers await the fulfillment of Donald Trump’s campaign trail promise to demolish the department in its entirety. “‘I would love for all of this to go away — but I don’t have any hope that it will,” one probationary agency worker who was fired last week told POLITICO. “I anticipate that the department will be dismantled in the next month. And I know there will be a battle with Congress because it needs congressional approval, but I don't see Congress being able to step up and fight that battle.” Congress established the Education Department as a Cabinet level agency in 1980, so Trump can’t officially abolish the agency without buy-in from lawmakers. But his executive order would direct the agency to create a plan to hamstring its functions using its existing administrative authority and to figure out the laws needed to delegate the department’s powers to other agencies. The result? The department would then be forced to close. The Education Department has just 4,200 employees, the smallest staff of any cabinet agency. But its demise is likely to lead to a noisy and ferocious fight since its programs serve more than 50 million students attending roughly 98,000 public schools and 32,000 private schools. The agency also plays a critical role in civil rights law enforcement in the nation’s schools and provides federal grants and student loans to more than 12 million postsecondary students. The president’s political appointees are already chipping away at the agency and attempting to claw back millions in grants and contracts. The department has canceled more than $600 million in grants used for teacher preparation programs, $350 million in contracts and grants to several Regional Educational Laboratories and Equity Assistance Centers that support research, $226 million for the Comprehensive Centers Program and $881 million in contracts for the Institute of Education Sciences, the nonpartisan research arm of the agency. More than 130 employees have been fired or placed on administrative leave. The resulting tumult — and reports of the pending executive order — have sparked an outcry from education leaders and lawmakers who warn eliminating the agency could have serious consequences for vulnerable students. Linda McMahon, the nominee for Education secretary, tried to assure lawmakers at her confirmation hearing last week that the president doesn’t want to defund education programs. She also underscored that Congress won’t be left out of the decision making on the agency’s future. “We’d like to do this right,” she told lawmakers. “We'd like to make sure that we are presenting a plan that I think our senators could get on board with, and our Congress to get on board with.” Some Republican lawmakers are already thinking about how they would do it. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), an advocate for local control in education, last Congress introduced legislation to serve as a potential roadmap for eliminating the agency. He proposed rehoming several federal education programs in other agencies. Programs like the Pell Grant, which is reserved for low-income students, and other federal student aid would be under the Treasury Department’s purview. Tribal and Native American education programs would move to Interior. HHS would oversee special education programs, the State Department would take on the Fulbright-Hays Program and Labor would direct career and technical education programs. Rounds has yet to reintroduce the legislation this congressional session. While other lawmakers have similar ideas, they acknowledge their desire to eradicate the agency hinges on congressional approval. That would require some Democrat buy-in — which is highly unlikely. At the moment, there’s no clear plan of what the department might look like under Trump’s order. But it’s widely believed that his executive order could be signed as soon as this month — likely after McMahon is confirmed, which seems a certainty after she cleared a key procedural vote Thursday to advance her nomination to the Senate floor. Until then, everyone’s just waiting impatiently to see what’s next — and the precise language within the executive order. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at bquilantan@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @biancaquilan. COMING TODAY: Donald Trump's unprecedented effort to reshape the federal government is consuming Washington. POLITICO is going to be your guide to all the key decisions and characters with a fresh version of one of our signature newsletters — West Wing Playbook: Remaking Government. Sign up here to get it straight in your inbox.
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